Gabriel von Max

  

Head of a Baboon

1870

pencil and wash on paper
 
Gabriel von Max
Head of a Baboon
1870
pencil and wash on paper
23,8 x 18,6 cm

with extensive annotations by the artist, including, at the bottom of the drawing, the title and date:  

"Cynocephalus Babuin (Africa) in München am 17 December 870 fem. juv [female juvenile]"


Provenance: Estate (Nachlass) of the Artist
The head of the baboon in Gabriel von Max's oil painting "Abstinence," circa 1900, is directly based upon this drawing.  See Aleš  Filip and Roman Musil, eds., Gabriel von Max (1840-1915), (Plzni, Czech Republic: Arbor Vitae and Západoceská galerie v Plzni, 2011), ill. 256, pg. 195:
Gabriel von Max
Abstinence
oil on canvas
circa 1900-1915
unidentified German private collection
In the collection of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, there is a related drawing of this same baboon in profile, dated 1870.  See Karin Althaus and Helmut Friedel, eds., Gabriel von Max, Malerstar, Darwinist, Spiritist (München: Hirmer Verlag, 2010), p. 301, ill. 290: 
In the Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg, there are albumin photographs, circa 1870, of a dead baboon that appears to be the same animal depicted in our drawing.  See: Althaus and Friedel, ills. 296-297 and 299-300, pgs. 303-304.
In addition, and most significantly, the same baboon depicted in our drawing appears to be the central and largest monkey depicted in Gabriel von Max's masterpiece, "Affen als Kunstrichter" ["Monkeys as Art Critics"] (1889), in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Neue Pinokothek, Munich:  

Contact:

The Daulton Collection

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